City Harvest volunteers package food for families in need
NEW YORK -- In a massive space in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, dozens of volunteers spent hours packing and sorting bags of seasonal food, dry goods, and pantry items to be distributed to around 400 food pantries and soup kitchens around the city.
With containers filled to the brim with the goods, employees from various companies participated in City Harvest's work to fight food insecurity. On Thursday alone, workers estimate they packed around 1,000 bags of the rescued food for those in need.
"We have some canned vegetables, rice, mac 'n cheese, stuffing, everything that can help make your Thanksgiving table full," Chelsea Ettlinger, manager of business partnerships at City Harvest, told CBS2's Hannah Kliger.
The work was happening in a brand new, 140,000 square-foot facility known as the Cohen Community Food Rescue Center, which organizers say will be crucial to helping the group expand it's reach.
"You are looking at one of our very first repacks in this space. We are so excited to have volunteers out here for the first time," Ettlinger said.
"It's about three times the size of our old home, so it provides more space for us to be able to do our mission to fight hunger," said Jerome Nathaniel, who works at City Harvest.
Nathaniel says with the high cost of food and other things, the organization has been seeing a higher demand for its services.
"We're seeing more pantry visits right now. In fact, we had a survey where nine out of 10 people who go to our pantry programs right now said they are going to be making more visits to pantries this year because of the rising costs of food," he said.
Thursday marked the start of the "Repack to Give Back" campaign, which will last through December. During this time, City Harvest aims to load more than 1.2 million pounds of food into boxes, to then distribute to hundreds of partnering pantries and soup kitchens.
"Food is just such a powerful symbol for family," Nathaniel said. "We're able to really make a bigger impact across our city."
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